Tell me, are guns dangerous?

Which one is scarier, a gun owner or a teenage driver?

Subject #1: A man in his mid-30's at the shooting range, firing off a few rounds from a .22 LR rifle, adjusting the scope to zero it in at 100 yards. Each time firing has ceased, someone says "Range is cold", he unloads his rifle, keeps the bolt back to ensure no round is chambered, engages the safety, and walks downrange to see how close his groups were on the paper target he was firing at.

Subject #2: A teenage driver, aged 16, behind the wheel of the new GMC Yukon her parents purchased for her. In one hand in a cell phone, that hand being used to text message friends. In the other is a Starbucks cup. And attention to the road is nowhere to be found. After "Message sent" appears on her phone, she looks up to see that she's halfway in the lane of oncoming traffic.
Thankfully, no one was coming.

So I must ask, what gives reason to people considering gun owners to be "dangerous" or "scary"? We hear in the news about shootings; most recently, the Tucson shootings, in which 6 people died.

But does it make national news when a drunk driver, barreling the wrong way down the interstate, slams into a van and kills 6 people? The death toll is the same, so why does the shooting make national headlines and create shockwaves, while the traffic incident seems to be shaken off with a passé acknowledgment that "something should be done", and whether it is or not, no one passionately follows it up, except for the families of the victims?

I'm presenting two opposite scenarios here. But I really am curious about this, why does one incident cause people to react with shock and fear, while the other seems to affect those uninvolved so very little?

MJ2011-02-25T23:16:37Z

Favorite Answer

I'm going to go against the grain of the answers here.

Yes, guns are dangerous. This shouldn't make them scary or evil, as a chainsaw is also dangerous, but no one advocates banning chainsaws.

Gun safety is in the hands of the user, but even the most careful user can potentially make a mistake. On the other hand, if I must defend my life, I'd better hope the threat will find my gun to be dangerous.

A gun is like many other things that involve danger, either great or mild: Driving a car, riding a motorcycle, riding a horse, flying an airplane, etc. The reward is greater than the risk. But there's always a risk.

Still, "A gun is dangerous" is just a stupid, hypocritical statement used by anti-gunners to put restrictions on firearms. A gun must be dangerous to something, that's it's mission.

I'm not apologizing to the anti-gun, anti-freedom crowd for that.

Anonymous2016-12-24T04:47:51Z

1

uc4102011-03-01T02:07:06Z

Neither guns nor vehicles are dangerous. It is the person operating the gun or vehicle that presents the danger.
And yes, there are people who should not be allowed to operate either of them.
I have seen several different incidents where a drunk,reckless,or elderly person who suffered some sort of medical condition crashed his vehicle into a group of people causing multiple deaths and / or injuries.
They do make the news, not because of the shock value, but because it is out of the ordinary and a "public interest" story if you will. And yet nobody is calling for a ban on cars, not even assault vehicles. You know what they are.
Yet when some nut job goes mashugina and kills a dozen people it is front line news and the hue and cry goes out to ban those "evil guns" Their words, not mine.
The point here is that the object itself is not bad and does not cause harm. It is the raving loon in control of it. And no amount of legislation in the world will control that.

?2011-02-25T19:25:09Z

My theory: Guns are only as dangerous as the person using them. Just like cars. I see a lot more people dying from car crashes than gun accidents or shootings. People know guns are dangerous, so they act safer with them. Cars don't look dangerous, and they don't function to be dangerous, so people come to think they aren't dangerous. Also, whenever an accident or shooting occurs, everyone gets really paranoid about guns. Whenever a wreck or vehicular manslaughter occurs, nobody freaks out about using cars or other people driving. And I'm sure all of us heard the lecture in elementary school talking about the dangers of guns. It is beyond me why they don't further educate teenagers on driving safety. I'm 14 years old and I shoot guns with much more precaution and safety than many adults I've seen. Never took a safety class, gun safety truly only requires common sense.

rat2011-02-25T20:04:00Z

Very good. You have discovered what all these anti-gun losers are incapable of accepting.
It's all in the person using them. If you consider the positions revered, the teenager shoots all the people in the range and says "oops" and the 30yo guy is in the car watching the road.

It's all in the people who use them.
And for the record, I would say the car driver. A crazed gunman is easy to take down, A car coming at you full speed, not so much.
This is an interesting question, thank you for making me think.

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